Carbohydrates of the prion glycoproteins responsible for a group of neurodegenerative diseases were sequenced for the first time thanks to a highly sensitive technique. Prion diseases are a group of rapidly progressive, fatal and infectious neurodegenerative disorders affecting both humans and animals: Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) or ‘mad cow’ disease is one of the most famous since in 1996 scientists found that the agent responsible for the disease in cows, is the same agent responsible for the so-called variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob…
LHC/ATLAS Creation of matter in an interaction of two photons belongs to a class of very rare phenomena. From the data of the ATLAS experiment at the LHC, collected with the new AFP proton detectors at the highest energies available to-date, a more accurate – and more interesting – picture of the phenomena occurring during photon collisions is emerging. If you point a glowing flashlight towards another one, you do not expect any spectacular phenomena. The photons emitted by both…
Capability could accelerate the development of new treatments for diseases. Northwestern University synthetic biologist Joshua Leonard used to build devices when he was a child using electronic kits. Now he and his team have developed a design-driven process that uses parts from a very different kind of toolkit to build complex genetic circuits for cellular engineering. One of the most exciting frontiers in medicine is the use of living cells as therapies. Using this approach to treat cancer, for example,…
A new study, in which the Andalusian Earth Sciences Institute (IACT) (CSIC-UGR) participated, has described for the first time a key stage in the beginning of the great glaciations and indicates that it can happen to our planet in the future. The findings were recently published in the scientific journal Nature The study claims to have found a new connection that could explain the beginning of the ice ages on Earth Antarctic iceberg melt could hold the key to the…
A gene linked to unusually long lifespans in humans protects brain stem cells from the harmful effects of stress, according to a new study by Weill Cornell Medicine investigators. Studies of humans who live longer than 100 years have shown that many share an unusual version of a gene called Forkhead box protein O3 (FOXO3). That discovery led Dr. Jihye Paik, associate professor of pathology and laboratory medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine, and her colleagues to investigate how this gene…
Periodic pulses of light forming a comb in the frequency domain are widely used for sensing and ranging. The key to the miniaturisation of this technology towards chip-integrated solutions is the generation of dissipative solitons in ring-shaped microresonators. Dissipative solitons are stable pulses circulating around the circumference of a nonlinear resonator. Since their first demonstration, the process of dissipative soliton formation has been extensively studied and today it is rather considered as textbook knowledge. Several directions of further development are…
An electrode material with modified surface atoms generates more electrical current, which drives the sunlight-powered reactions that split water into oxygen and hydrogen–a clean fuel. -Scientists have demonstrated that modifying the topmost layer of atoms on the surface of electrodes can have a remarkable impact on the activity of solar water splitting. As they reported in Nature Energy on Feb. 18, bismuth vanadate electrodes with more bismuth on the surface (relative to vanadium) generate higher amounts of electrical current when…
Cooperative operations between a solar observation satellite and a sounding-rocket telescope have measured the magnetic field strength in the photosphere and chromosphere above an active solar plage region. This is the first time that the magnetic field in the chromosphere has been charted all the way up to its top. This finding brings us closer to understanding how energy is transferred between layers of the Sun. Despite being the brightest object in the sky, the Sun still holds many mysteries…
New study proves A research team from the Fraunhofer Institute for Environmental, Safety and Energy Technology UMSICHT was commissioned by the Medical Remanufacturing company Vanguard AG to investigate the positive environmental impact of medical remanufacturing using certified processes rather than disposing of these products. At the AMDR (Association of Medical Device Reprocessors) round table on March 11, co-author Anna Schulte will explain the details of the recently published study. A circular economy should make it possible to extract fewer fossil…
Fractured rocks of impact craters have been suggested to be suitable environments for deep colonization of microbial communities. In a new study published in Communications Earth & Environment, a team of researchers shows that fungi has colonized deep parts of the largest impact crater in Europe, the Siljan impact structure, Sweden. Intriguingly, the fungi seem to have been fueling methane production in the crater. At the scenic Swedish lake of Siljan, an impressive impact structure of more than 50 km…
Deep learning algorithms reveal rules of gene regulation With the help of artificial intelligence (AI) a German-American team of scientists deciphered some of the more elusive instructions encoded in DNA. Their neural network trained on high-resolution maps of protein-DNA interactions uncovers subtle DNA sequence patterns throughout the genome, thus providing a deeper understanding of how these sequences are organized to regulate genes. Artificial intelligence algorithms are extremely powerful at fitting massive and complex datasets. But their interpretation, rationalizing how the…
Even in the world of the smallest particles with their own special rules, things cannot proceed infinitely fast. Physicists at the University of Bonn have now shown what the speed limit is for complex quantum operations. The study also involved scientists from MIT, the universities of Hamburg, Cologne and Padua, and the Jülich Research Center. The results are important for the realization of quantum computers, among other things. They are published in the prestigious journal Physical Review X, and covered…
The working group led by Prof. Stephan Schiller, Ph.D. from Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf (HHU) has used a novel, high-precision laser spectroscopic experiment to measure the internal vibration of the simplest molecule. This allowed the researchers to investigate the wave character of the motion of atomic nuclei with unprecedented accuracy. They present their findings in the current edition of Nature Physics. Almost 100 years ago, a revolutionary discovery was made in the field of physics: microscopic matter exhibits wave properties….
Magnetic nanoparticles biosynthesized by bacteria might soon play an important role in biomedicine and biotechnology. Researchers of the University of Bayreuth have now developed and optimised a process for the isolation and purification of these particles from bacterial cells. In initial tests, magnetosomes showed good biocompatibility when incubated with human cell lines. The results presented in the journal “Acta Biomaterialia” are therefore a promising step towards the biomedical use of magnetosomes in diagnostic imaging techniques or as carrier in magnetic…
Bremen consortium develops innovative docking system for underwater robots. How can inaccessible places on the Earth, such as the deep sea, as well as those on other planets be investigated? Extreme goals present extreme challenges for the technology used. These are more serious than just corrosion or resistance to unusual pressures. For example, the new technological solutions will enable communication with and supply of energy to underwater robots by way of an innovative docking system. Toward this end, a consortium…
Fueling the ‘methanol economy’ of the future Researchers at the University of Illinois Chicago have discovered a way to convert the methane in natural gas into liquid methanol at room temperature. This discovery, reported in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, could potentially provide a cleaner energy source for many of our everyday activities. When burned, natural gas — the fuel used to heat homes, cook food and generate electricity — produces carbon dioxide, a powerful greenhouse…
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